


No Signs of Stopping

by SylvanWitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canadian Shack, Established Relationship, Huddling For Warmth, Hypothermia, M/M, Snowed In, Superhusbands (Marvel), holiday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: A blizzard, a US Forest Service fire tower, and thou.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79
Collections: Spicy Advent - Multi-fandom Porn Advent Calendar 2019





	No Signs of Stopping

“I thought you said you’d thought of everything,” Steve said, taking care to make it sound like an observation and not a criticism.

Tony was standing in the smoking wreckage of their borrowed Quinjet searching for the flashing orange light of the emergency transponder, which had thus far proved stubbornly absent.

“I did,” Tony said, running a shaking hand through his snow-wet hair.

“It does seem kind of weird that S.H.I.E.L.D. would loan us a Quinjet without a transponder. Or black box. Or emergency supplies, back-up comms, parachutes, or even bottled water.” 

Again, Steve’s tone suggested he was contemplating leaving a comment card for the manager, not ruthlessly ignoring the ferocious wind pelting them both with icy grapple and reducing visibility to the fingers at the end of his outstretched, blue-tinged hand.

They’d been on their way to a little island in Hawaii, where Tony had promised Steve they could spend the holidays wearing as little as possible while sipping fruity drinks and taking turns slicking each other up with SPF 50 and lubricants of a more personal—and decidedly naughtier—nature.

He’d even flashed Steve a glimpse of the mistletoe temporary tattoos he’d planned to affix below each of their navels before the festivities began in earnest.

It seemed unlikely that they’d _accidentally_ wound up stranded in a blizzard somewhere in the Rockies with nothing but the clothes on their backs and hope in their hearts.

Someone had obviously sabotaged the Quinjet in order to kill them. 

If it hadn’t been for Steve’s flying and Tony’s exceptional navigational skills, that someone would have gotten their wish.

When the world had stopped spinning, they’d freed themselves from the smoldering cockpit and stumbled clear of the wreckage, expecting an avalanche to come thundering down on them.

When _that_ hadn’t transpired, they’d gone back to salvage what they could, which was when they’d discovered how badly they’d been betrayed: Every single item that came S.H.I.E.L.D. standard in case of emergencies was missing.

Tony took in the situation, shook his head in frustration, and then put his hands on his hips, looking for all the world like he was surveying the breadth of his kingdom.

The fact that he couldn’t control his shivering kind of ruined the effect.

“Suit?” Steve asked hopefully, already suspecting the answer. If Tony had had a working Ironman suit, he’d have had it on already.

Tony shook his head. “I’ve tried retrieving it from wherever it landed when the tail came off. Nothing. I can’t get in touch with Jarvis, either. I think we’re on our own.”

Steve touched his collarbone, “At least we still have the trackers.”

Tony shook his head again. “In this weather, in these mountains? All kinds of signal interference. Also, it seems unlikely that the asshole who sabotaged us would leave the team any way to track us. Nope, we’re on our own. Again.”

Then he was seized by body-wrenching shivers, and he couldn’t seem to get any more words out past his clenched teeth.

“We’ve got to find shelter,” Steve said, just to be saying something. Obviously, they had to find shelter; if they didn’t, Tony would be dead inside the hour, and Steve would want to be dead along with him.

Steve wasn’t spending even one more night trapped alone in an icy hell. Been there. Done that. Had the psychological scars and post-traumatic stress to prove it.

They’d landed in a saddle, a broad dip in the land between two towering peaks. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect to find a cabin or village—too high up, too far from any road.

Still, they had to move, if only to keep Tony from freezing to the spot, and common sense said move downhill, which meant west, unless his internal compass had been knocked out by the crash.

Just as he started to suggest that to Tony, Tony said, “There,” and pointed over Steve’s head and behind him.

Steve turned to make out what Tony was indicating and felt relief surge through him at the sight of a light glittering promisingly through the driving snow.

“Fire tower?” Steve asked.

Tony shrugged, hands tucked up into his armpits, head turtled down into the collar of his lightweight jacket.

Steve turned toward the light and began to break trail through snow that was already thigh-high in places. He could sense Tony up close behind him, trying to keep to the easier path Steve was forging for them and hopefully getting some relief from the screaming wind.

Steve was breathing heavily in minutes. Already, the hair at his temple was rimed in ice, and he could feel freezing tendrils of sweat working their way under his collar. He shivered, swallowing a sound of discomfort, and kept going.

As they plunged upward on an increasingly steep trail, the light was lost in the tree canopy, and Steve had to go by instinct, keeping his head down, using his arms for balance and momentum, darting swift glances behind him every few steps to make sure that Tony was still with him.

An agonizing ice age later, Steve saw symmetrical lines emerging out of the chaos of snow and falling dusk ahead of him and realized they’d arrived at the structure.

A sign warned them that the tower was federal property and trespassers would be subject to a fine and potential jail time. More problematic was a chain padlocking a cage around the base of the tower’s steep, narrow stairs.

Tony was tucked in close to Steve, face an unhealthy red, eyes streaming from the battering snow, nose running. Steve wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close to ask, “Any ideas?”

Tony’s lips were a freezing brand against the frostbitten shell of Steve’s ear as he said, “R-r-r-r-r-r-r-ock.”

Right. The cold must have been getting to Steve for him not to have thought of it himself.

Thankfully, the area immediately beneath the tower was somewhat sheltered from the storm, and a few moments of kicking the snow there unearthed a rounded, palm-sized rock that Steve used to make short work of the lock.

“Don’t touch the railing,” Steve cautioned Tony, who ordinarily would have given him hell for such a bush-league reminder. Now, though, he was visibly waning, eyes at half-mast, lips blue, feet dragging as he tried to climb up the first step.

Steve bolstered him with a hand at his back, shouting encouragement over the banshee wind.

It seemed to take even longer to climb the tower than it had to get to it in the first place, but eventually, they came to the catwalk that surrounded the lookout, its windows shuttered and door predictably padlocked. Steve had wedged the rock into the pocket of his jacket for just this occasion and got the door open in three quick strikes.

Though there was no heat in the structure, it felt blessedly warm just to be out of the wind. Tony made an aborted sound and stumbled, Steve reaching out to steady him and guide him to the cot just inside the door on the right.

He’d left the door open, despite the draft, because it provided him scant light to survey their temporary abode. His heart leapt at the sight of the propane heater, and he prayed to anyone who was listening that there was still fuel in it.

He located the valve by feel, straining to hear the telltale hiss before hitting the starter button.

Click-click-click-click-whooomph!

“Yes!” he cried, the first fingers of heat reaching out to drive away the cold.

Once he was sure it was going to keep doing its job, Steve searched out a light, happy to discover a propane lantern with clean white mantles and the reassuring slosh of fuel in its belly.

Light and heat taken care of, Steve closed the door and returned to where Tony was sitting hunched over, arms wrapped around himself, shivering violently.

“Let’s get these clothes off you,” Steve suggested, and Tony raised his bloodshot eyes, made an attempt at a grin that split open his wind-scoured lips, and said, “Thought you’d never ask,” through clenched teeth.

Steve was already warming, the serum adequate to the task; Tony, on the other hand, was ice cold, his muscles knotted with the violent shivers wracking him. Steve stripped Tony’s jacket and shirts with grim-faced efficiency, alarmed by Tony’s silence as he made a visible effort to keep his teeth from chattering.

He took a knee to undo Tony’s pants, which got no reaction out of him—more worrisome—and then helped him out of his shoes and sopping wet, icy cold socks.

Most worrisome of all were Tony’s feet, blue from the cold, his toenails darkened to purple half-moons, and by the way Tony struggled to cross the few feet from bed to heater, Steve could tell there was already considerable frostbite.

Steve helped Tony into one of the table’s two chairs, which Steve had dragged close to the heater, and began by warming Tony’s extremities with his hands, rubbing briskly. 

When Tony winced and muttered, “Ow,” Steve felt a zing of relief, followed closely by sympathy. He knew how painful it was to regain circulation in frostbitten toes and fingers.

“Sorry,” he said, and Tony managed, “’s’okay” through the clatter of his teeth. 

Content that Tony wasn’t going to lose a digit, Steve left him long enough to break open the lock on a storage trunk—good thing he’d hung on to that handy rock (and boy, were they going to have to reimburse the US Forest Service). With a crow of triumph, Steve retrieved two heavy wool blankets from the trunk and wrapped them both around Tony.

Only when Tony was able to say, “I’m fine, Steve. Stop fussing,” did Steve leave him, and then just long enough to fire up the propane stove, heat a pot of water, and make some instant coffee he’d found way in the back of the mostly empty cupboard above the sink.

It smelled stale, but Steve knew Tony had had worse, drinking the cold dregs from abandoned cups strewn around his lab, and judging from the way Tony’s eyelids fluttered closed as his shaking hands wrapped around the mug, it could’ve been hot horse piss and Tony would have enjoyed it.

At last, Tony’s shaking subsided to the occasional shiver, and when he began to look interestedly around them, Steve thought he’d be okay.

“I’ll see if I can find us a can of soup,” Steve said, hoping there’d be something in the heavy-duty, rodent-proof trunk besides blankets.

“I’m not hungry,” Tony said. “Tired, though.”

“You want to lay down?” 

Tony nodded. “Yeah,” and let Steve help him up and over to the cot. As Steve began the process of making Tony into a human burrito, though, Tony’s hand shot out, fingers wrapping around Steve’s wrist.

It wasn’t their coldness that made Steve shiver: Tony’s eyes burned with a different kind of heat.

Tony said, “Warm me up?” and pulled the blankets back to invite Steve in.

Steve made short work of his own damp clothes, happy to shed them and slide into the warm, close space beneath the blankets.

The bed was narrow, barely large enough for one grown man, never mind the two of them, but Tony solved that problem almost at once by straddling Steve and then stretching himself out on top of him, a solution Steve aided by spreading his legs to let Tony settle between them.

Tony’s skin was still cooler than normal, which might have concerned Steve if Tony hadn’t already begun creating friction between them by moving his hips in a shallow, rocking thrust, bringing their flaccid cocks in careful and almost constant contact.

Steve let out a startled breath at the sudden rush of pleasure and wrapped his arms around the small of Tony’s back, pressing him closer to add resistance and make the friction more delicious.

Tony cursed, his rhythm stuttering, and bit down hard on Steve’s collarbone.

The pain arrowed to Steve’s cock, and he bucked up against Tony. “Fuck,” he said, drawing the word out as the heat built low in his core.

He set a punishing pace, thrusting up as he pulled Tony down, the heat intense now and still building. Tony’s breath burst against Steve’s throat, coming faster as Steve sped up yet more, Tony abandoning his efforts to keep up and giving himself over to Steve’s frantic rutting.

“St-steve,” Tony stuttered, and Steve eased off on the pressure only long enough to work his hand between them, getting it around their cocks and resuming the brutal pace until Tony cried out, throwing his head back, muscles corded in his neck as he shouted and came in a scalding hot stream across Steve’s belly and chest and throat, droplets searing even his chin as Tony spent himself.

Steve’s cock skidded in the slippery mess between them as he once more pinned Tony against him and drove himself up against Tony’s belly, once, twice, hearing Tony say, “Yeah, c’mon, Steve, get me dirty, fuck, you feel so good,” and coming in a blinding flash that left him momentarily deaf to all sound except the thunder of blood in his ears.

When he pried his eyes open an eon later, Tony had propped himself up with his forearms on Steve’s chest to look down into his face. He was wearing his smuggest grin, and when he saw that he had Steve’s attention, he wriggled against him, sending shocks through Steve’s overstimulated cock.

In retaliation, Steve wrapped his legs around Tony, effectively fettering him, which seemed to have been his husband’s goal all along, judging from the way he melted against Steve without a word of protest.

“Told you it’d be hot,” he murmured sleepily, the crash, the day’s effort, the near death by exposure all obviously finally catching up with him.

“Sex with you is always hot,” Steve noted, stroking Tony in long, soothing motions from the nape of his neck to the tight rise of his ass.

Tony purred at the caresses and shook his head, his hair dragging against Steve’s nipples, making him shiver in the best possible way.

“Not the sex. The vacation.”

Trapped in a fire tower, surrounded by a blizzard that even now howled and raged beyond their snug little hide, wasn’t exactly the island paradise Steve had expected, but he couldn’t deny that Tony was right about one thing—the space between them was hot from their recent exercise, and the air beyond their blanket nest was warm, too, the heater chugging faithfully along.

“You always have the best ideas,” Steve agreed, kissing a grin into the spot just behind Tony’s ear, earning him another highly compelling wiggle. 

“Oh, hey,” Tony said, rising blearily from Steve’s chest to lay a sloppy kiss on him. “Merry Christmas.”

Startled by Tony’s words, Steve did a quick mental calculation to discover that it was, in fact, Christmas morning. 

He remembered Christmases as a kid, wheezing and cold, his mother making endless cups of cocoa so the gas burner would keep the kitchen warm. 

He thought of a campfire in a midnight forest, the snow crunching under booted feet, his brothers around him warming each other with whiskey and tall tales.

He thought of all the Christmases he’d lost, frozen and alone, and of last Christmas—maybe the worst one—only briefly.

Tony breathed a kiss against the hollow of his throat, and Steve came back to him, to the love they’d just made, to the heat always between them, to the hope that Steve knew where he’d be every Christmas for the rest of their lives.

“Merry Christmas,” Steve answered at last, a blessing for the ghosts of the dead and a benediction for their future together.

Then he pulled Tony close, against his furnace heat, wrapped his legs around Tony’s, and felt a swelling of impossible fire as Tony’s breathing changed, falling asleep, safe and warm, rocked in the cradle of Steve’s body.


End file.
